So it turns out we’re a love-struck bunch in the UAE, with residents Tweeting the word love more than nine million times so far, Twitter says. With seven million in English and 2.8 million for حب، الحب, that’s more than one tweet for every person living in this desert nation.
But where are all those ❤️s going?
For starters, given the country’s admiration for His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, it makes sense that one of his tweets would be among the most liked in the country. Take a closer look below.
شكرا لكل من شاركنا أفراحنا الوطنية المجيدة .. شكرا لكم باسم شعب الامارات pic.twitter.com/osMO6qn6rE
— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) December 5, 2016
Top love-related hashtags
For UAE residents, respect is as important as that thing that makes the world go round, if we go by the top ten love-related hashtags:
- Love
- Respect
- السعادة
- happy
- blessed
- عبر_عن_حبك_للإمارات.
- الحب
- beautiful
- valentinesday
- lovetwitter
Emoji love
And of course, given that emojis are the new way we all communicate, there are a bunch of mushy characters to choose from (thankfully, there are no rude vegetables among them). The folk at Twitter helpfully sent us an illustration ranking the most popular romance-themed emojis on the social media platform in 2016.
But what about Obama?
No, that wasn’t just clickbait to get you to read this post (give us some credit). Turns out Obama’s global appeal – plus an official, presidential, Twitter handle won him the most likes of all time. That’s 1.8 million and counting.
Thank you for everything. My last ask is the same as my first. I'm asking you to believe—not in my ability to create change, but in yours.
— President Obama (@POTUS44) January 11, 2017
And here’s the post that gave us all #relationshipgoals. At 18,633 likes.
Happy Valentine's Day! pic.twitter.com/iC98vmOt
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 14, 2013
Kinda puts your own all-time-most-liked post in perspective doesn’t it?
And @realdonaldtrump’s in the running with a yuuuge number of likes, too – for, of all things, Thanksgiving (that American custom no one else really understands).
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We will, together, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2016
But those are big shoes (really big! the biggest!) to fill, so don’t despair. Twitter, at least, loves you: hit up the social media platform today with the hashtag #LoveHappens to unlock a special emoji.